Sunday afternoon Football on both Seven and Nine drew in large audiences, however the complications of hosting non-block buster games resulted in a dwindling total TV National average audience.
Over on Seven and its broadcast of 3rd on the ladder Adelaide Crows going head-to-head with 17th placed Richmond Tigers drew in a total TV National reach of 1,402,000. Key forward Riley Thilthorpe helped Adelaide cruise to a 68 point victory over the struggling Tigers, kicking five goals and two behinds. The most fight Richmond would ironically show came in the second quarter when firebrand Tiger Tom Lynch lost his cool and threw a full-blown punch at opposition defender Jordon Butts.
The result of this lacklustre contest was a dwindling total TV National average audience of 488,000.
Nine suffered a similar fate when the Gold Coast Titans and the North Queensland Cowboys did battle in a bottom of the table clash in front of a national reach of 1,292,000. The Cowboys shot out to a quick 12 point lead when both Zac Laybutt and Murray Taulagi crossed the try line in the first 20 minutes. However, rugby leagues greatest equaliser, the rain, came out to play allowing the Titans to wrestle themselves back into the match.
Due to an error riddled match, played in not so golden conditions, the total TV National average audience dropped to 496,000. The match that consisted of 25 errors on the Gold Coast, saw bigger brother North Queensland hang on to a 30-24 scrappy victory.
MasterChef was once again the most popular entertainment program on 10, grabbing a reach of 1,031,000 people, and holding an average of 629,000. Which interestingly, the reach was higher than both the AFL and NRL coverages on respected broadcast networks.
